Midland's Perry skates three personal-best times at U.S. Long Track Championships

Dan Chalk, chalk@mdn.net

Published 2:28 pm, Monday, January 9, 2017

With the next Winter Olympics just over a year away, Midland speed skater and aspiring Olympian Brett Perry skated personal-best times in all three of his distances this past weekend at the U.S. Long Track Championships in Salt Lake City, Utah.

“It was a really good weekend,” said Perry, who turns 24 later this month and currently lives, works and trains in Salt Lake City.

Perry skated the first of his two 500-meter races in 36.19 seconds, which was the seventh-best time out of 42 skaters competing.

He skated the 1,000 in 1:11.27, the 10th-best time out of 39 skaters.

Perry finished the 1,500 in 1:53.52, the 16th-best time out of 36 skaters.

Perry said that he benefitted from changing his starting stance and changing to shorter blades coming into the meet.

“I used to do a standing start, kind of like in short track. But now I do a down start, where you put your hand on the (ice) and you’re already into a skating position,” Perry explained. “I could definitely tell the difference (in my performance).”

Perry also switched from 17 1/2-inch-long blades to 17-inch blades on his skates.

“It felt like I was in more control of my skates than with the bigger blades,” he said.

Perry plans to compete in the U.S. Olympic Trials for long track, which will be held in Milwaukee next December or January, in hopes of earning a spot on the Olympic team for the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, in February 2018.

Perry has already met the qualifying times to compete in the trials. He competed in both the short track and long track trials for the 2014 Olympics, but this time will compete only in long track.

Meanwhile, Perry’s next competition will be the Long Track American Cup final in Salt Lake City from March 10-12.